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"Are you afraid of the dark?"
"Things shed their skins in the dark; they split out of their husks; they crawl up from beneath the earth and they shift their bones to become things that shouldn't ought to exist.
It ain't the dark I'm scared of. I'm afraid of what's in it."
Sydney in the 1920s: a melting pot of people from all nations, a lawless, raucous destination for the drug-addled, the criminally inclined and those seeking adventure-or a sticky end. In that part of the city-christened "Razorhurst" by the tabloid dailies-where most of the booze, drugs and vice thrives, crime is the status quo, barely held in check by police brutality and living large off the poor, defenceless and destitute. But, along with the crime, other forms of evil fester there, other dangers and other atrocities against which most forces-for good or ill-are unprepared. Alone in the city two men stand against this rising tide of evil and seek to rescue the populace from its horrors.
These are the tales of those intrepid hunters, taken from The Case Book of Patrick Dolan, Private Investigator, tales of darkness, monsters and the power of
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Shadows of Razorhurst - Oceaniacom Press
S H A D O W S O F R A Z O R H U R S T
C R A I G S TA N T O N
S H A D O W S O F
R A Z O R H U R S T
First published by Oceaniacom Press 2025
A division under Oceaniacom Pty Ltd.
www.oceaniacom.com
Shadows of Razorhurst
Copyright © 2025 by CRAIG STANTON
ISBN (Print): 978-1-923113-12-1
ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-923113-13-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission from the publisher. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Craig Stanton
Oceaniacom Press supports copyright. Thank you for supporting copy-right and buying an authorized copy from Oceaniacom Press, a division under Oceaniacom Pty Ltd. Your commitment to respecting the intel-lectual property of creators contributes to the world of literature and entertainment. We appreciate your dedication to fostering a culture that values and protects the works of imagination. Together, let’s con-tinue to celebrate and uphold the importance of creative expression.
Visit us online at: www.oceaniacom.com for more literary adventures.
To my Family
For bringing me back to life.
To Michelle,
For making it worthwhile.
This book was written on Dharug land.
Always was, always will be.
S H A D O W S O F
R A Z O R H U R S T
B Y
C R A I G S TA N T O N
CONTENTS
From the Casebook of Patrick Dolan
I.: The Devil Drives
II.: Havoc!
III.: The Dead Man’s Knock
IV.: Box of Lucifer
V.: Sketched in Shadow
VI.: A Gordian Shape
Afterword
About the Author
| vi |
"Listen to them—the children of the
night. What music they make!"
-Dracula, Chapter 2, 1897
I .
T H E D E V I L D R I V E S
C H A P T E R
I
T H E D E V I L D R I V E S
NEEDS MUST, WHERE THE DEVIL DRIVES...
-TRADITIONAL SAYING
I’ d had my lights punched out before. Plenty of times. But never by a seventeen-year-old girl. I came to in a pile of sawdust redolent of stale beer and human by-products. My hat covered my face, for which I was grateful, and I was lying on my back. My shoes were being slowly toasted by a band of sunlight rolling across the floor. I probed my molars one by one with my tongue—definitely rat-tled, but all still present and accounted-for.
I heard the clanking of a bucket and the slopping of water: I sat up slowly, letting my hat fall into my lap.
‘Well, I see you survived,’ a voice rasped.
I squinted in the morning sunshine. The roller blinds were at half-mast, glowing redly, and dust motes swam in the
| 2 |
CRAIG STANTON
honey-coloured beams which flowed beneath them. Across the room from me was a hunched-over old man in threadbare clothes, munching a cigarette and leaning heavily on a broom. His bright gaze made me think his eyes were made of glass, but that couldn’t be right. Not both of them. He craned his neck and spat noisily into a bucket of suds next to his feet.
‘You gonna git movin’?’ he asked, ‘‘cause I gotta mop this joint down fer ternight. I only let you stay ‘cause he asked me to.’ He nodded towards the bar where liquid sunshine slammed slowly into the boot-scuffed woodwork beyond the brass rail. Limned in gold was a pair of worn, pointed shoes, bedecked in pearl-grey spats, on feet attached to legs crossed at the ankles. They un-crossed as I squinted harder and their owner stood up from leaning against the marble top. Using a nearby barstool, I followed suit. Cramming my hat on my head, I raised a shielding hand to take in this stranger.
He was a little under average height, hatchet-faced and swarthy. His black hair was unfashionably long—presuming of course that he wasn’t a professional musician of some type—and he affected a pencil-thin moustache. He wore a grey suit, a shade or two darker than his spats, over which was thrown a dark coat. His gloved hands held a homburg hat and a black cane.
‘I know you?’ I said, rubbing my stubbly and tender jaw.
‘Not yet,’ he answered brightly, his English coloured with a faint European twang. ‘At the moment I’m just the fellow who paid for your night’s accommodation—such as it was.’
The old bloke with the bucket chuckled and began pushing sawdust with his broom.
‘Well, thanks, I guess,’ I said shrugging my shoulders. ‘What makes you so interested in my welfare?’
| 3 |
SHADOWS OF RAZORHURST
Before answering, he planted his cane on the floor and smiled out towards the waiting day. A number of small metal-lic objects, attached to fine gold and silver chains around his wrists, rattled against the carved head of his walking stick.
‘You and I,’ he said, turning his gaze upon me, ‘are looking for the same person.’
* * *
I was still spluttering angrily some minutes later as we stepped out onto the street.
‘This was supposed to be an exclusive contract!’ I fumed. ‘If someone else was going to be brought in on the case, that was to be at my discretion. I can’t do my job if I’m tripping over someone else’s feet all the time!’
The nattily dressed man turned suddenly to face me, rais-ing conciliatory hands.
‘Now, now,’ he soothed, ‘let me be clear about this. We’re looking for the same person, but we’re not working the same case. And we certainly aren’t in the employ of the same per-son.’
‘So, you’re not getting bankrolled by Danvers?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m working for quite a different indi-vidual,’ he said. ‘One might say a higher power.’
‘Might one?’ I threw a cigarette in my mouth and lit it with the lighter from my coat pocket.
‘The Danvers girl is the point where our two investigations intersect,’ he continued. ‘You are trying to return her to her parents; she has information that I need to obtain.’
I exhaled slowly, smoke streaming in two jets from my nos-trils, while my gaze narrowed. ‘Are you suggesting that we col-laborate?’
| 4 |
CRAIG STANTON
His eyes twinkled. ‘I definitely think that it would be worth our while.’
I ashed my smoke on the pavement and leaned back on my heels. ‘Really?’ I rumbled.
‘Absolutely,’ was his response. ‘You have certain physical advantages over me that I feel could be useful, while I possess a wealth of knowledge about the current situation which should prove invaluable...’
‘...For which you would command how much of the fee, d’you reckon?’ I put some venom in the words as I lobbed them out.
For an instant, his face blanked as he registered what I was saying. Then he chuckled and waved a gloved hand.
‘Mr Dolan,’ he said, ‘whatever arrangement you have made with Mr Danvers, that is your business entirely. I have, as I said, my own—backers—and my own contract. I seek no re-muneration from your involvement; it simply seems to me that our combined forces would further both our objectives that much more greatly than if—as you say—we trod on each other’s toes...’
‘I usually work alone,’ I interjected.
‘...And you have no idea what you’re getting into,’ he fin-ished.
I glared at him. ‘I’ve an idea that I’m tracking down the way-ward daughter of a wealthy businessman, a girl who’s keen to leave her boring North Shore lifestyle of tennis and tea parties for a bit of excitement on the wrong side of the Harbour. I’ve done this a dozen times, easy—you find ‘em, follow ‘em, and then sweep in to grab ‘em just when they’ve bitten off more than they can chew; then you drag ‘em home, grateful, to a tearful mama. Tell me again that I don’t know my own job!’
| 5 |
SHADOWS OF RAZORHURST
He pulled a keychain from his vest pocket and used it to point towards a black Oldsmobile parked by the kerb next to us.
‘How often does the girl knock you unconscious just as you’re adopting the white knight routine? Shall we?’ He checked the road for traffic then strode quickly around to the driver’s side door and slipped in. Seconds later, the passen-ger side door flew open, and his voice piped out over the road noise:
‘Come along, Mr Dolan! Our quarry has about eight hours’ head start on us. We’ve got some catching-up to do!’
I bent down and glared in at him. Then I flicked my ciga-rette away and squeezed into the car. It doesn’t matter what make of vehicle it is, I never have enough room to be comfort-able. I struggled around for a bit then slammed the door shut.
‘Say!’ I said, ‘how exactly do you know my name?’
In reply, he raised an index finger then fumbled in an in-side coat pocket with the other hand. When it emerged once more, it held my wallet.
‘Please excuse the liberty,’ he said, ‘but given the choice of myself or the bartender acting as guardian, I felt that you’d prefer I looked after this for you.’
The moment I’d seen it, I did that stupid routine of patting all of my pockets in order to ascertain that what I was seeing was real. Realising the futility of this manoeuvre however, I stopped then retrieved my wallet with a grunt. He was right—falling unconscious in a King’s Cross pub is the quick-est way to discover yourself waking up naked in a Darlinghurst back lane... if you wake up at all. Nevertheless, I checked the contents, then tucked it away.
‘And what do I call you?’ I growled.
| 6 |
CRAIG STANTON
‘Anton,’ he replied, pulling the car out into the street, ‘An-ton Vadász.’
* * *
We drifted off into the traffic and I took stock of my sur-roundings. The interior of the car looked as though someone spent a great deal of time within it: there were leather-bound books on the dashboard and a kind of magazine rack stuffed with ledgers and newspapers divided the floorspace between me and Vadász; an enamel mug with two pencils and a foun-tain-pen inside it, rattled in a wire holder hanging between the glove box and the instrument panel; a thermos flask rolled around on the floor, bumping against my shoes.
‘Excuse the mess,’ said Vadász, ‘when I’m on assignment my car becomes a sort of second office.’
‘Certainly seems cosy,’ I answered. ‘What’s that?’ I pointed at a blue glass disc hanging with a pendant tassel from the rear-vision mirror.
He turned it over in his fingers, revealing that the forward-facing surface bore a white circle with a black dot in the mid-dle of it.
‘This is a charm to deflect the Evil Eye,’ he informed me.
I shot him an appraising look.
‘Many folks trying to put the whammy on you?’ I asked.
‘Not often,’ he smirked, ‘but I like to keep all my bases cov-ered.’
I continued my examination. What I assumed was a petrol gauge, turned out to be a small votive image of the Virgin Mary in a circular gold frame; Palm Sunday crosses stuck out at neat angles from the sun visors; a St. Christopher medal swung from the gear shift. Through the windshield I could see that
| 7 |
SHADOWS OF RAZORHURST
the standard hood mascot had been replaced by a brass statue of some elephant-headed deity.
‘I get the impression you’re kinda superstitious,’ I observed, pulling my cigarettes from my coat pocket.
‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘I just like to have all the options open to me. That won’t work, by the way.’ He pointed at my lighter.
I cocked an eyebrow at him and went ahead and tried it anyway. True to what I’d just been told, the lighter refused to spout flame. Instead, the interior of the car faintly glowed, a fine network tracery of lines and sigils, pulsing orange from a point directly above me on the ceiling, swept across the ve-hicle’s interior surface and faded once more from view. An-noyed, I tried lighting up a few more times rapidly before Vadász’s hand clamped down over mine.
‘The car resists fire,’ he said, ‘you’re just wasting your time.’
‘Resists fire
?’ I growled, ‘how does that work? Some kinda asbestos?’
‘Not really,’ he responded vaguely, ‘suffice it to say that fires inside the car are put into abeyance. I’d be careful next time you light a cigarette with that device: you’ve put quite the cumulative charge on it.’
I glared at my lighter; then at Vadász. Grunting, I dropped it back in my pocket. ‘I’ll try to remember that’ I grumbled, and looked out the window, trying to ascertain where we were.
‘Say, Vadász—where’re we headed?’
‘First stop,’ he said brightly, ‘are the offices of The Sun newspaper. That being accomplished, a secondary destination will no doubt be indicated.’
I hunched back in my seat. ‘Private dicks and muckrakers. I see you hang out with the best of crowds,’ I snapped.
| 8 |
CRAIG STANTON
‘It could be worse,’ he smiled turning onto William Street.
‘How so?’ I bit.
‘I could hang out
, as you say, with lawyers.’
* * *
We pulled up to the kerb and stepped out into the busy morn-ing of another Sydney day. Sunlight was warming up the brick-work of the buildings lining the thoroughfare and the air reeked of coal dust and hot tar. Cars rumbled by on the black-top accompanied by the ringing bells of trams and the tramp of feet heading to work. A few yards down from where we stood, several gulls were squabbling over something unmen-tionable on the footpath.
Getting into the front doors of The Sun offices was fraught with difficulty, mainly due to the push of newspaper men try-ing to rush out through the same entrance. Vadász chose his moment, then grabbed one fellow who was wrestling into his jacket while trying to operate his hat, his spiral-bound note-book between his teeth. Gripping him firmly above the elbow, Vadász neatly excised him from the departing mob and stalled him on the pavement.
‘Mr Dobson,’ he chirped, ‘what means this explosive egress? Are the premises on fire?’
Dobson blinked a couple of times using the moment to ori-entate himself and get properly under his fedora. ‘Mr Vadász!’ he exclaimed. ‘Gee, I’d love to stop and chat, but there’s a big story breaking at police headquarters.’
Vadász released him and helped straighten his lapels. ‘I shan’t keep you then,’ he smiled, ‘but can you give me the pré-cis?’
| 9 |
SHADOWS OF RAZORHURST
Dobson’s feet were already moving as he called over his shoulder, ‘The police have found the missing Danvers girl! The commish is gonna hold a press conference...!’ And he was gone.
‘What!?’ I roared. ‘That’s not possible! How the devil did they do that?’
‘How, indeed,’ Vadász muttered.
‘Stay here, Vadász,’ I ordered, ‘I need to find a telephone.’
I rushed across the busy road to a nearby pub. Within its cool, hops-y interior, a telephone hung on the tiled wall of a corridor leading to the men’s room: I summarily ejected the SP bookie who was cluttering-up the facilities and gave the num-ber in my notebook to the exchange. It was quickly answered.
‘Mr Danvers? Patrick Dolan here. I—’
‘Mr Dolan,’ the gravelly tones of the businessman cut me off. ‘I assume you’re calling because you’ve heard that my daughter has been recovered by the police. My wife and I have also just been informed and are about to leave for the City. No doubt you realise that this brings our mutual business to a close.’
‘But—’ I tried.
‘Frankly, Mr Dolan,’ he went on, ‘it was only due to outside pressure that I sought your services at all, others whose opin-ions I formerly valued assuring me that leaving the business in the hands of the police would serve me ill. I believe that my faith in the constabulary has now been more than restored.’
‘Until we know all the details—’ I tried again.
‘That will be all, Mr Dolan.’ There was some fire amid all the frostiness now. ‘The advance I paid in order to secure your ser-vices you may keep, and we shall call things quits. To be ab-solutely frank, I was suspicious of your braggadocio and easy
| 10 |
CRAIG STANTON
assurances at first, and I find those suspicions now confirmed. All in all, I feel that, in this matter, I have been swayed in my judgement by sentiment; rest assured that it will not happen again. Good-bye, Mr Dolan, and do me the final service of los-ing my telephone number.’ He hung up sharply.
I didn’t quite break the instrument by closing the connex-ion at my end, but it was close.
Letting myself out onto the street once more, I saw Vadász emerging from The Sun offices, pulling on his gloves once more. Hunch-shouldered, my hands in my pockets, I stomped across the road towards him. I didn’t particularly pay attention to the traffic: I was angry enough that, if anything had tried to run into me, I would have seriously made it regret the deci-sion.
‘So, I guess this is the end of the line for the both of us,’ I grumbled as I stepped over the kerb to stand opposite him. ‘Girl’s found; job’s done.’
He smiled serenely up at me, the slender chains around his wrists jingling faintly as he switched his cane from one hand to the other.
‘Not by a long shot,’ he said. ‘Yes, the Danvers girl has been found, but her associate, Mr Dolan, her partner in this affair, is still very much at large.’
‘Yeah, well,’ I said, ‘finding that feller ain’t gonna pay my